02Jan17

Riot by Drug Gangs in Brazil Prison Leaves at Least 56 Dead

A prison riot involving gangs vying for supremacy over the cocaine trade in
the Brazilian Amazon left at least 56 people dead, the authorities in the city of
Manaus said on Monday.

Riots at Brazil's prisons are common, but the episode in Manaus, which
involved decapitated bodies being thrown over the walls of the penitentiary,
ranks among the bloodiest in recent decades. Officials expressed dismay over
the scenes of slaughter in the Compaj prison, which held more than 1,200
inmates, about triple its official capacity.

"I never saw anything like this in my life," Judge Luís Carlos Valois, who
helped negotiate an end to the riot, said in a Facebook post. He said that
dozens of people had been killed, but that it was challenging to arrive at a
precise count: "There were lots of bodies. Many of them were dismembered."

The riot flared on Sunday and lasted about 17 hours, raising fears of even
greater violence on the streets of Manaus, the largest city in the Amazon
basin with a population of about 2.1 million. Manaus has emerged as a brutal
battleground between two prison gangs that are contesting control of the
drug trade in the region.

The authorities said that one of the gangs, Familia do Norte (Family of the
North), which operates from the Manaus prisons, was responsible for the vast
majority of the killings during the riot. The targets were from First Capital
Command, a much larger rival gang commonly known by its Portuguese
initials, P.C.C., which has its roots in the prisons of São Paulo in southeast
Brazil.

"There were deaths only on one side," Sérgio Fontes, the top security official
in Amazonas State, told reporters. "The Familia do Norte massacred members
of the First Capital Command, and one or another guys who weren't on their
good side at the moment."

The riot drew comparisons with the 1992 uprising at the Carandiru prison in
São Paulo, when police forces stormed the building and 111 inmates were
killed. An appeals court recently voided the convictions of 73 police officers for
their participation in the killings, raising criticism from human rights groups.

Since that episode, the Brazilian authorities have vowed to alleviate
overcrowding in the country's prisons and combat prison gangs. But soaring
numbers of convictions for relatively minor drug offenses have pushed prison
populations upward, the gangs' clout is growing, and riots continue to erupt
frequently all over the country.

In the riot in Manaus, inmates took dozens of fellow prisoners hostage. They
also seized 12 employees of Umanizzare, a private contractor that operates
prisons in the Amazon. Negotiators eventually won the release of the hostages
by assuring the inmates that they would not be harmed or transferred to
other prisons.

Security specialists say that Brazil could experience more riots like the one in
Manaus as P.C.C., the São Paulo gang, extends its reach around the country.
Familia do Norte, the Manaus gang, recently formed an alliance with Red
Command, a gang that has been losing ground to P.C.C. in parts of Rio de
Janeiro.

[Source: By Simon Romero, Rio de Janeiro, 02Jan17]

This document has been published on 04Jan17 by the Equipo Nizkor and Derechos Human Rights. In accordance with
Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a
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